1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to mobile communications, and more particularly, to technology related to interactive applications while online and offline on mobile devices.
2. Related Art
A variety of mobile devices (such as personal data assistants, or PDAs, handheld computers, cellular phones, pagers, etc.) exist. Such mobile devices include ones based on the Palm operating environment and the Windows CE operating environment.
A variety of software applications for those mobile devices also exist.
The nature of mobility results in the use of these devices when no network is available to connect them to information sources. Also, mobile devices usually have limited user interface capabilities. The data that an individual mobile user may need is likely spread across multiple information sources. Thus, an immediate demand exists for presenting data from multiple information sources in a unified manner on mobile devices.
Also, mobile devices are usually disconnected from a network for long periods of time (perhaps weeks). Changes that a mobile user may make while utilizing data from the various information sources are likely to cause conflicts. Thus, a demand exists for providing updates of the changes made by the mobile user while disconnected from the network to resolve conflicts.
Therefore, what is needed is a system, method, and computer program product for synchronizing loosely connected computing devices with data from a plurality of information services and presenting the data in a single paradigm that enables a user to interact with the data without being connected to a network and update the information services with changes made by the user when the user reconnects to the network.